Michelleginting's Journal

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Sunday, February 16, 2014

When is it healthy? When is it not healthy? When is it helpful? When is it not helpful?

We learn new things everyday, and I, I learned about criticism yesterday.
It is not something new, it's rather old and rusty, which is why we could easily ditch it every time.

We should have known that we need great courage and understanding to criticize.

1. Criticize "something" and NOT "someone".
Let me tell you that this one is the hardest one for me to do, though it is the MOST IMPORTANT ONE. The difference of being objective and subjective is like love and hate. There a a slight difference between them. You love the person by criticizing 'something they've done, said, created, had'. You hate the person by criticizing 'him/her'."You'll look dumb if you send it, don't." and not "You're dumb. Why do you even think about sending it?""I think her new novel isn't that interesting anymore. She would have succeeded, if she had written more about the inner emotional problems of each characters and less about their past." and not "The new book sucks, I am disappointed.""Ugh, your cooking needs a lot of improvements. Did you put salt in it?" and not "Dude, don't cook anymore, I beg you.""Nah, you did it wrong, let me show you how." and not "Nah, it's really useless to show you how."
Notice the difference? It's simple but it's different.

2. Criticize something/someone's something that we know/understand.
It means what it means. Not more, nor less.
Why would we comment on someone we don't know anyway? I really don't get people on this one. Why would you comment about people you just met on the streets? "Oh, she's wearing such ugly and short skirt." or "That man looks super scary. And he got scars on his right cheek."
What I always say, I DON'T CARE. Let them have their life, okay? She might have a really bad taste in clothes, but what if she's actually a scientist that's on her way to find a new cure for cancer? Do you think she would have time to choose her skirt?! Or what if that man was a soldier? What if his stern look is due to his nightmares every night, he's trying so hard to have his life back?
Not long ago, I encountered such experience that kind of open my eyes. I'm glad I learned a lesson from it."I think her religion is heretic. We don't have that in our country, do we? Isn't it considered wrong?" my friend has been commenting on her friend's religion for like 15 minutes, and I was getting on my nerves."Listen up, first, explain to me,what is heretic? Second, explain to me what are the things that are heretic in her religion? She killed someone? Was she encouraged to hate something or some group? Do you even know what kind of religion is it? Have you asked or read about it?" I asked back. AND SHE KNEW NOTHING.
This topic is really sensitive, we could criticize someone else's religion, and on the other side of the street, it is likely that someone criticized ours. My advice: Focus on what we have, kay?

3. It is better to praise someone first, before we go down the other path.
I think this one is clear enough. My best examples are my teachers, and my friends."That was a great essay, Michelle. It's just that I expect something more from you.""You've got pretty eyes, but you surely should considerate losing some weight.""I love to listen to your story, but would you listen to mine, too?""I really think of you as a great friend for telling me that, but I think you could have told me in a nicer way.."
I like this kind of people. No, I love them. And what's more is, I won't despise them for criticizing me or telling me what to do, on the contrary, I love them more because they care enough about my pride before saying what's really on their mind.

4. When someone criticize you, open your ears and eyes. Listen closely. Be critical to the critics too.
I once read a quote that said:
"Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

5. To care is to criticize.
One of the reason why we love our best friends. They care enough about us, to actually criticize us.
I considered myself as a stubborn woman, I'm not an easy person to deal with, I'm broad-minded but I don't just 'easily' accept everything. That's why when someone actually tried their best to correct and convince me, I would see them in a much better angle.

You and I totally rocked the world back then! Or that was what we thought about us, and ourselves. We were the most funny, sweet yet annoying combination in the world. To be said, I was like your river, and you were mine. We kept each other flowing in the right direction, to the truths, to our dreams, to our hopes.

We had so many things in common, that actually last until now. We're still the same girls from back then, just a bit more mature. We love comics or should I say manga, you love to cook and I love to eat, we both don't have any talent in drawing, we love Journalistic (when we were in junior-high, you wrote articles and I was the editor of the magazine), we both are really nationalist, we love Sheila on 7 (even made a song as our BFF's song), we love to dance and take pictures, we love poems and films, and we love to sing (remember the choir 10 years ago, we have our own version of Felix Navidad). I have a loud and low-pitched voice that gets really high when I scream, just like yours.

We named our favorite teachers and ate lunch together, we kept some plastic spoons, and we wrote down our signatures on a banknote. You've always made me your special macaroni cheese on my birthdays and I would eat it very happily. We went to manga sales together, we made our own dance moves and told each other everything.

We both stated our dreams together when we were in junior-high. You were so interested in geography, then you told me that someday you're going to be an inventor of a device that can detect tsunami after the tsunami tragedy in Aceh. I was so interested in biology, then I told you that someday I'm going to be a cardiologist after one of my family members had an heart attack. And look at us now, still supporting and believing in each others true intentions, and keep on trying to reach our dreams.

Referring to our telephone conversation, I've always loved it. I don't care how many hours, just crying and muttering my fears to you is enough to calm me down. You have always called me whenever you have problems too, you don't care even if you're sobbing, shrieking, and snotting so loud right to my ear, it calms you down.

Now that we've grown up, we have different schools, we even live in different countries and continents.

I know that we both can't easily call or text each other since I've moved to Germany. And I'm the one who is always being so ironic about it, but you should know, that I can always feel your support and prayers from here.

We chose our different paths, but that has never and won't ever change our ways.

I really am thankful to have you as my best-friend. I won't change any second of our fun yet silly memories even if I had the chance to.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

I'm allergic to weather changes.
Yes, I know. Uncool, isn't it?
Think about peanut allergy, dairy product allergy, or fish allergy, or wheat allergy. As long as it's an allergy to food, I could do my best to avoid it. But, weather changes? They're cycles of nature! What's more, here in Germany they have four seasons, that effect the weather to change drastically every time.
I'm having a really bad flu. I can't stop sneezing and coughing.
And the fever, I hate having a fever, especially the headache, ugh..
I can't stop myself from complaining, but I can't do anything about it either.
It's frustrating..

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Getting mad is just a waste of time and energy, so I DO really prefer NOT to be angry for too long. 10 to 15 minutes of hearing my heart-pounding right in my ears is just "enough" to drive me off and change myself into a hulk-bitch. I repeat, a Hulk-Bitch.

Well, it's actually pretty interesting.. Imagine me in a green version, a monster with messy hair *though I would really like to see my hair like Merida, wearing only a pair of tattered clothes, huffing my breaths hither and tither.

Interesting.

Not a good idea, but still, interesting.

There are a LOTS of ways to express our anger. In these oh-so-many-ways, I only have 2 as my favorite:

1. If I could, oh man, if I could, I would just hold my anger inside. There in my stomach, take a deep breath, good girl.. Now smile a bit, and just leave the annoying person alone. Flee. Yes, fleeing is a good choice for times like these. Mostly I abandon the person I get angry to, I couldn't care less about their existence. Bad habit. But that's just how I flee. I get angry, I dump everything inside my stomach, I became hateful, I abandon his/her existence, and then I just move on with my life.

2. To just let your anger out, there, at the time, totally on the spot.
There are just times when I couldn't help it, and I actually always feel pretty bad after getting so affronted and insulted to the point of reviling back. I turn into a creature with such lousy and abusive mouth, and as we know we could never take our words back. Not even when you didn't mean any of it.

Then, the story is: I was cooking in the small kitchen in my dormitory and 'this dude', who I've always avoided to meet, just came and started babbling about nonsense and things that insulted me, my religion, my origin,my culture, my people, *from my point of view* pretty much everything! I've tried to change the topic, but he wouldn't budge. I thought, "hey, just let this aggravating person be, 'he' would forever be like that, and still doesn't give a shit about everything that 'he' did."
I was trying to just smile and let a big amount of air into my lungs, until, out of the blue, instead of leaving 'him' there alone, I snapped and blabbed 'him' back.

Yes yes yes. I BLABBED 'HIM' BACK.
And yes, I felt pretty great after then.

And dude, I felt sorry for you, that was mean. But I did really think that you needed someone to tell you that you're unbelievably annoying and arrogant.. well at least that's what I thought.

A lesson to learn is probably... it's okay to just let your anger out. Holding too much anger inside you is like abounding health problems. Be YOU!

Monday, May 27, 2013

Since last month, there has
been a big duck living in my dormitory area, the garden to be exact. A month later, there have been 3 ducks living
in my dormitory’s garden. 2 cute and fluffy ducks and a big noisy mommy duck. I
have NO idea where did these ducks come from, but I do have some theories.

First
probability, one of my cohabitants wanted to eat duck, you know, nobody could
ever detested a roasted duck or pecking duck. That would be sick. And at the
moment they wanted to kill the duck *sorry for the graphic* this duck just ran
away. Let me tell you, our garden is located in the middle of the dormitory,
where everyone can see it, because we have glass-walls around the garden. And
running around the garden to catch a duck was just so ah-mazingly un human so
they didn't do it, and let this mommy duck go.

Second
probability, one of my cohabitants had this duck as his/her pet, but the duck
ran away because the window to the garden was open, and since the rule of my
dormitory doesn't allow duck to live inside the dorms, she/he was too scared to
get the duck, and let her be.

But then, I
had some conversations with my friend Yola, and I told her that ducks don’t
fly, but she said, yes. So here comes my third probability, this mommy duck
flew upon the dormitory, and had some rest in my dormitory’s garden. And then
she decided, “Ah, this garden is so good and comfortable and all. I’ll spend my
days here.” And she stayed and bore her child there.

Enough with the possibilities,
whatever reason it was, she’s already living inside my dormitory. And I was
literally not having any problem with it because they were so cute until
something happened. The weather went really bad; it was pouring cats and dogs for
like a week and so the temperature went down. One of the little duck died, and
so her mommy and the other little one left was trying to survive under the
bushes.

It was drizzling when I saw my
cohabitants Raul and Johannes there in the garden, trying to do something with
some boxes and sticks. They were really into something, so I urged myself to
ask. They told me that they were trying to save these ducks and asked me to
help them.

So we've tried for about 30
minutes, trying to get the ducks inside the box, but they wouldn't just
understand our good will, until the mommy went really scared and flew away into
the roof.

I REPEAT. SHE FLEW AWAY.

I REPEAT. WHAT DID? A DUCK.

Because we don’t want to scare
the little duck, we decided to go back and wait until the mommy comes down to
get her kid. Two hours later, I found out that Johannes succeeded to save the
ducks. Good job!

So, let’s down to my theories.
Since ducks do fly I choose my 3rd probability as the most logical
reason why there have been 3 ducks living in my dormitory lately. Which one do
you choose?